Yeah, you are right about this. I thought of this distinction as I was typing my post, and decided to leave the line in as a rhetorical flourish. In retrospect, that was the wrong decision.
I didn’t say “ever”. I’m not enough of a historian to make that comparison. Also, I think its difficult to compare politicians of different eras, when the same ideologies and personal qualities might have greatly different results.
I think a person may be principled regardless of whether you agree with those principles. As an example, I also respect Senator Russ Feingold, though his ideology diverges greatly from that of Sen. Helms, and from my own. He is a principled man of great integrity.
And I consider Sen. Helms himself to be inhumane.
What you interpret as joy I see as wanting simple long overdue cosmic justice. This one man’s ignorance and bigotry adversely affected far, far too many lives to be ignored.
Esprix
My apologies for misquoting you - I believe you said “of our generation.”
I’d still like an answer to the question, though.
Esprix
A principled man is not a racist like Helms.
Obviously, you have a way different idea of what principles are.
In that case, perhaps I don’t understand your question - I believe I outlined my reasons in my first post. Again, I am in general symphathetic to his viewpoint, and admire him for the way he has stuck to his principles in the face of enormous opposition. This in marked contrast to numerous other politicians who sell out. Plus his general fine character.
I should add that he also mastered the art of legislative maneuvering, without which no politician can be succesful.
I do recall one instance when he made an innapropriate remark. This was during the height of the “Gays in the Military” controversy, when he suggested that it might be dangerous for Clinton to visit NC. He might have made others as well. But no one is perfect.
Izzy, I am agog. I didn’t realize you valued bigotry, racism, homophobia, sexism, and anti-Semitism as principles worthy of standing up for, nor how these attibutes can be considered a “general fine character.” I don’t care if he took in stray puppies - the man had enormous influence and used his clout and position to make those reprehensible “princples” into law that adversely affects hundreds of thousands of people every day.
If you can only think of one instance where he made an “inappropriate remark,” I suggest you do a bit more research into the man you would seek to defend as “one of the greatest senators of our generation.”
Esprix
UncleBeer, I think you are gtting bent out of shape by a lot of hot air and hyperbole. I’ll be perfectly honest and admit I do not, in fact, wish Helms any particular disease or injury, but in an arena created specifically to discuss how hated he is (ie, this thread), I see no harm in engaging in these sort of exagerations as a way of highlighting how much more reprehensible this particular senator is in relation to his more moderatly scummy peers.
I just don’t understand it. I got really pissed off when the conservatives in America hounded and harrassed Clinton endlessly. They hated Clinton, but never once have I ever heard a Clinton hater revel at the prospect of his early death. And here I thought that the support for the death penalty was primarily a conservative cause. I sympathize with those who were hurt by Mr. Helms’ tenure in the senate, but that does not equate to to the crimes against humanity by other world leaders that evokes little emotion in this forum.
Problem with using these types of labels is that they are open to so many meanings as to render them useless for serious judgement. Guy believes that blacks are a higher species of ape: racist. Guy opposes a national holiday for Martin Luther Kings birthday: racist. Guy goes out at night looking for gays to bash: homophobe. Guy opposes a bill to make sexual orientation a civil rights crime: homophobe. And so on. Some of these appellations may indeed apply to Helms (or to me, for that matter) depending primarily on how the terms are defined. So I regard these as semantic matters, and prefer to focus on actual issues.
Not a bad idea. My impression of Helms is based on my years of following politics, which date back to the Reagan administration. I also checked out the link helpfully provided in this thread by sofa king, and did not see anything objectionable. But it is not out of the realm of possibility that I might have missed something.
By the same token, I would suggest that much of the vicious opposition to Senator Helms is based on a superficial characterization of Senator Helm’s positions as “bigotry, racism, homophobia, sexism, and anti-Semitism”, rather than on a genuine understanding of his actual positions and ideology. Certainly the posts to this thread would seem to indicate that.
Trying to intimidate blacks into not voting qualifies as racist to me.
grienspace: I got really pissed off when the conservatives in America hounded and harrassed Clinton endlessly. They hated Clinton, but never once have I ever heard a Clinton hater revel at the prospect of his early death.
! Where have you been, in a cave on Mars with your fingers in your ears? (thanks stuffinb :)) The freepers have happily reveled in that prospect, to the point of uttering their own veiled death threats:
A class act all the way, those Clinton-haters. :rolleyes:
See, Kimstu, what’d I tell you about the Freepers? They SCARE me sometimes, although it’s fun to mess with them.
No problem, but it’s really a Simpsons quote 
Pretty short turnaround time there, Kimstu. You’ve come from surprise that the Free Republic people would support Helms, to astonishment that someone could be unaware that they revel in the prospect of Clinton’s death, all in a week. Quick on the uptake, I must say.
From my own (subjective) perspective, I agree with grienspace. I think such expression is indeed more common on the left than on the right.
In addition to the various death-wishes expressed in this thread, I recall at least two instances of posters reveling in Reagan’s suffering from Alzheimer’s Disease.
Your comparison to the Free Republic MB is invalid. The SDMB is non-partisan, and not inherently political (though there would appear to be some imbalance in favor of liberals). Ostensibly, the posters should represent a cross-section of the various political affiliations in this country, and the sentiments expressed should represent this as well. By contrast, the Free Republic MB is geared specifically at right to far-right wing conservatives. The fact that you can cull from such a group sentiments that parallel those expressed here is not meaningful.
I would also direct your attention to the statements by Alec (Alex?) Baldwin (the actor) who suggested on national TV that Henry Hyde and the other House Impeachment Managers should be stoned to death, along with their wives and children. Also the national show (I forget which) that displayed a picture of (then-candidate) George Bush with the caption “sniper wanted”. I don’t recall any parallel examples among conservatives.
I am in general not inclined to differentiate between average characters of conservatives and liberals. But in this case I think there may be a valid distinction. It might be that the fact that liberal politics are superficially more moral than conservative politics (help the poor, fight discrimination, save the environment etc.) this tend to fill liberals with more of a sense of righteousness than conservatives, which leads in turn to a greater level of demonization of their opponents. But who knows? YMMV.
Of course, it could also be that these are actually manifestations of the fact that the SDMB and the media are more tilted to the left than one might suppose.
IzzyR: *Pretty short turnaround time there, Kimstu. You’ve come from surprise that the Free Republic people would support Helms, to astonishment that someone could be unaware that they revel in the prospect of Clinton’s death, all in a week. *
Nah, I hadn’t remembered that the death threats were from freepers, but I heard enough references to them (the threats) when they hit the news that it did surprise me that someone would be entirely unaware that such things even existed.
*Your comparison to the Free Republic MB is invalid. *
Who the flak was trying to compare the two boards?!?? Not me. grienspace said, “never once have I ever heard a Clinton hater revel at the prospect of his early death.” I pointed out that it was common knowledge that that had indeed happened. I also expressed my disdain for the “classiness level” of people who would make such remarks as the ones I quoted.
That was all I said. Now if you want to continue your argument with your imaginary opponent about the “average characters of conservatives and liberals,” go right ahead, but kindly leave my name out of it.
Oh, so all you meant was to say that someone somewhere had wished for Clinton’s death? Well in that case you’re right - I have nothing to argue withyou about. I shall have to stick with my imaginary opponent, who understands that that is meaningless. There are nuts who do anything. What matters is what is normative “mainstream” behaviour.
Wish: to have a desire for.
Revel: to take intense pleasure or satisfaction.
Wishing for something and reveling in it are, IMHO, two different things.
Esprix
Well, the media is only as liberal as the corporation that owns it. But one example I noticed is enough to put that “tilted to the left” idea to the test:
Consider the replacements in the pundit news shows: When the stars at Fox are replaced because the hosts are on vacation or out for other reasons, the replacements are guys like Newt Gingrich, Bob Dornan, etc. When the guys in the “liberal news” are replaced we always get virtually unknown reporters sitting in their place. Now if Jesse Jackson had appeared as a replacement you could then say that the news was slanted to the left. But even in that case I think it would be only fair. (Yes, regular news at Fox does not do that, but it is amazing the number of right wingers that think that the anchors of CNN, CBS, ABC, etc. are the liberal opposition)
As for the left having a “greater level of demonization of their opponents”:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A21791-2001Aug30.html
To get back to the OP: here is one question.
Wasn’t Jesse Helms censured by the Senate for conducting his own foreign policy in the 80’s?
http://www.spectacle.org/595/helms.html
Doing a long search in Google and other search engines, I could not find better references. Could it be that he was only denounced by the senate? Or only the press took him to task? I did remember that he got in hot water for a letter he wrote denouncing Thomas Pickering, the US ambassador to El Salvador in those days.